Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 274: 'Conrad Talks Hollywood' (2011)

Remember My Dinner with Andre? Well, this is My Car Ride with Conrad.

"Marcel Proust was a very famous writer who used to dip biscuits in his cup of tea and suck on the biscuits, and all his memories come flooding back, and he wrote them down into wonderful novels."

-Peter Cook, "Memoirs of a Miner" (1985)

John Carpenter's debut feature Dark Star (1974) is a low-budget sci-fi comedy about a small crew of astronauts, all of them male, who have been out in space for 20 years and have gone completely buggy from the experience. Their vessel, the scoutship Dark Star, has not been properly maintained and is rapidly falling apart. Their mission, essentially bulldozing a path through space for future colonization, seems utterly pointless. They've long since lost interest in themselves and each other. And they're officially out of toilet paper. It's a real bummer, man.

Powell on ice.

To make matters worse, their leader, Commander Powell (Joe Saunders) has died, so laid-back ex-surfer Lt. Doolittle (Brian Narelle), has taken his place. Sort of. He's kind of half-assing the job, to be honest. Meanwhile, immature crew members Pinback (Dan O'Bannon) and Boiler (Cal Kuniholm) are squabbling like siblings, while the eerily zoned-out Talby (Dre Pahich) has retreated to the safety of a bubble at the top of the ship. When the Dark Star faces a life-or-death emergency (which I will not spoil), the overwhelmed Doolittle reaches a strange conclusion: "I have to ask Commander Powell." 

Yes, the dead man's body has been kept in cold storage, and his mind can still be accessed through a radio-like electronic device. The frostbitten Powell is no longer at the peak of freshness, though, and Doolittle struggles to keep him on track. (The commander is more interested in baseball than the safety of his former crew.) This plot element is imported directly from the fiction of Philip K. Dick, who wrote about communicating with the frozen dead via radio in Ubik (1969) and What the Dead Men Say (1964).

While crafting these articles, I've often found myself wishing I could access the mind of my colleague Greg Javer (1968-2024) the same way Doolittle did with Commander Powell. Many is the time I have thought, "I wonder what Greg would say about this?" Sadly, the technology that Philip K. Dick described in his fiction is not available in reality. At least not yet. We may get there someday. Until then, the best I can do is go through Greg's old articles and see if I can find some inspiration or information there.

To that end, I recently revisited an article Greg wrote in 2020 about actor/director Conrad Brooks (1931-2017), a key member of Ed Wood's repertory company and a low-budget filmmaker in his own right. Greg briefly mentioned a documentary short called Conrad Talks Hollywood (2011) that I'd never heard of. I kept meaning to watch it but never got around to it. Well, I figured that this week was as good a time as any.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Lost Greg Javer/Keith Crocker Commentaries [PART TWO]

Yes, it's already time for a sequel.

I can still remember a few years back when Greg Javer aka Greg Dizawer excitedly emailed me about an Ed Wood project he was working on for Severin Films. To be honest, I didn't quite understand what the project was. I knew that it had something to do with a company restoring and rereleasing some of Ed's adult movies from the 1960s and 1970s, but beyond that, I was in the dark. Eventually, what resulted from all this was a three-disc collection called Hard Wood: The Adult Features of Ed Wood (2024).

It gives me some consolation to know that Greg was still alive when Hard Wood was released on Blu-ray. It's also nice to know that Greg lived to see Ed Wood receive an official New York State historical marker in his hometown of Poughkeepsie, NY. Greg's time on this planet was far too brief, but he managed to have a lasting impact on the field of Woodology.

And we still haven't heard the last of Greg, a year and change after his death! Recently, reader Brendon Sibley sent me some commentary tracks that Greg recorded with film archivist Keith Crocker that were intended for Hard Wood but did not make it into the released version of that set. Drawing on their vast knowledge of vintage erotica, Greg and Keith recorded their reactions to six of the Swedish Erotica loops that Eddie allegedly made in the early 1970s. What was the full extent of Ed's involvement in these silent movies? That's been a subject of debate for decades, and these commentary tracks hopefully provide some insight.

Last week, we presented Greg and Keith's thoughts on The Virgin Next Door (parts 1 and 2) and Western Lust. This week, let's enjoy their commentary tracks for Girl on a Bike, 15" Commercial, and Devil Cult. Again, I had to distort the visuals just a bit to appease the YouTube and Blogger censors, neither of whom would have allowed me to post these films as they originally appeared. You'll just have to imagine actor Keith Erickson's skin tag, among other things.

Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Lost Greg Javer/Keith Crocker Commentaries [PART ONE]

Keith and Greg talk Ed. (Header image by Brendon Sibley.)

Not long before he died, Greg Javer (aka Greg Dziawer) contributed some commentary tracks to the deluxe three-disc collection Hard Wood: The Adult Features of Ed Wood (2024) from Severin Films. Looking back, this was one of the last major Wood-related projects of Greg's too-brief life. If you purchase that set, you can hear him give his thoughts on Necromania (1971), The Only House in Town (1971), and The Young Marrieds (1972). If you're missing Greg, and I know many of you are, these tracks allow you to spend some time with him.

But these were not the only recordings Greg made for Hard Wood. He and I, for example, recorded a jovial and hopefully informative commentary for the rowdy, rural comedy Shotgun Wedding (1963), which Eddie scripted for director Boris Petroff. Unfortunately, that track got lost in the shuffle and never made it into the finished set. If you're interested in hearing it, I have made it available in a previous blog entry.

Meanwhile, teaming up with film historian Keith Crocker, Greg recorded commentary tracks for six (!) of the adult loops that Ed Wood made as part of the Swedish Erotica series in the early 1970s. These, too, were unfortunately lost in the shuffle and did not make it into Hard Wood. But fear not! Recently, reader Brendon Sibley forwarded these tracks to me and asked for me to present them on my blog. How could I resist an offer like that? 

In fact, I will devote this week and next to the lost Javer/Crocker commentaries. Three this week, three next week. Does that sound like a plan? For obvious reasons, I cannot present the loops without some visual distortion. YouTube has very little sense of humor about these things.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 239: The return of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast

Straighten that tie, mister! We've got a show to do!

When my late colleague Greg Javer (1968-2024) started The Ed Wood Summit Podcast back in January 2021, I'll admit that I didn't immediately see the full potential of the project. After all, what could he accomplish through videos that we weren't already accomplishing through our weekly articles about the life and career of Edward D. Wood, Jr.? I was more than happy to participate in the series, but I couldn't yet envision where Greg was going with this thing.

Well, I soon learned what made The Ed Wood Podcast so special. It became the ideal place to discuss Ed Wood and his work, both as a writer and a filmmaker. I was proud to be a guest on the show numerous times, usually reviewing Ed's books and stories. Other guests included such dedicated Wood experts as James Pontolillo, Milton Knight, W. Paul Apel, Rob Huffman, Mike H, and Robert Monell. In a very special episode from April 2023, the show even welcomed actress Casey Larrain, who'd worked with Ed on such films as Love Feast (1969) and Nympho Cycler (1971). 

At the center of it all was Greg himself, the Zen master of Woodology. He had all the qualities of a good host and moderator: curiosity, humor, patience, empathy, etc. The world could use a few million more of him. Greg is gone now, but it would be a shame for The Ed Wood Podcast to disappear with him. In that spirit, a few veterans of the podcast have reconvened to record the long-delayed 34th episode. The topic of discussion is an extremely obscure pulp novel from 1966 entitled Wild Nympho. It's credited to a mysterious one-and-done author named Matt Ronson, but could it really be the work of Ed Wood? That's what we're here to find out.

Our moderator, Rob Huffman, has also uploaded the episode to his own, excellent YouTube channel.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 237: The not-so-endless reaches of time

No matter who you are, time is coming to get you.

Ed Wood died at 54. My colleague Greg Javer, who researched the life and work of Ed Wood, died at 56. My own mother died at 46, her father at 54. I turn 50 in a couple of months. I am acutely aware that my time is rapidly running out. You know the scene in The Wizard of Oz (1939) in which Margaret Hamilton shows Judy Garland a giant hourglass full of red sand?

"Do you see that?" she yells, turning the hourglass upside down. "That's how much longer you've got to be alive, and it isn't long, my pretty! It isn't long!"

Cut to Judy Garland, sobbing in mute horror. That's how I feel right now.

I'm currently working a full-time cubicle job as a clerk at a mortgage company. Most days, I come home from the office feeling like garbage and not wanting to do much of anything. In what spare time I have, mostly nights and weekends, I do a biweekly podcast and maintain this blog. If you're reading this article, you probably think that I only write about Ed Wood. In fact, you may think this entire blog is called "Ed Wood Wednesdays." It isn't, but I've stopped correcting people on that point. 

SIDEBAR: The name of this blog is Dead 2 Rights. "Ed Wood Wednesdays" is a series of articles on that blog, sort of like how Saturday Night Live (1975- ) is a series on NBC. Most weeks, the Ed Wood stuff on D2R isn't even what gets the most clicks. My articles about Fat Albert, What's My Line, and Patience & Prudence consistently outperform Ed. In fact, of the ten most-viewed articles in the entire history of this blog, only two are about Ed Wood. And one of those is the index page.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 233: Let's endure Ed Wood's 'Devil Cult' (1973)

This young lady is either having a great time or a terrible one in Ed Wood's Devil Cult.

I don't know sometimes, you guys.

Since my colleague Greg Javer died last December, I've occasionally found myself wondering what kind of articles he would have written for this series if he had lived. It's impossible to say, since Greg's interests went in so many different directions. There was no aspect of Ed Wood's life or career that escaped his attention. At any given time, Greg might have been pursuing a dozen different threads simultaneously. Occasionally, I'd nag him into turning something he was exploring into an article that I could actually publish on my blog. And he would.

Quite a few of Greg's articles dealt with the loops, i.e. the short, usually silent 8mm pornographic films (both gay and straight), that Ed Wood made in the 1970s. Eddie wrote and/or directed many of these films himself, and especially "hot" scenes from his features like The Young Marrieds (1972) and The Only House in Town (1970) were also marketed separately as loops. These short films were generally sold through mail-order—and none too cheaply, either—so that viewers with their own projectors and screens could watch them in privacy at home. Hey, this was life before the internet, folks.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 207: (Yet) Another Deep Dive into the Huffman Files

Emails! I get emails! I get stacks and stacks of emails!

In these strange, sad weeks following the death of my friend Greg Javer, I've found some comfort in the knowledge that Woodology—the study of Ed Wood's life and career—will carry on without him. It'll carry on without me someday, too. Greg was the most prominent contributor of material to this series, but he was far from the only one. Over the years, people like Bob Blackburn, James Pontolillo, Keith Crocker, W. Paul Apel, and Philip R. Frey have sent films, texts, photos and more my way. I'm grateful to all of you.

One of my more persistent emailers is a true zealot named Rob Huffman. He regularly supplies me with press clippings and other oddities that he's found in his research. Sometimes, I feel a little guilty that I can't always respond to his emails in a timely fashion. There are only so many hours in a day, you know? But I thought that you and I could go through some of Rob's recent finds together. How does that sound?

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 206: Greg Javer (1968-2024)

"The bell has rung on his great career."

"Where's Greg?"

That is the question I've gotten most frequently over the last year and a half from readers of this blog. The remarkable Greg Javer, a soft-spoken Pennsylvanian who often wrote under the name Greg Dziawer, contributed a great deal of material to this series from 2015 to 2023. He started out with numerous Ed Wood Wednesdays articles before eventually launching his own series of YouTube videos called The Ed Wood Summit Podcast. His interests were wide-ranging, even within the seemingly limited field of Woodology. He was just as likely to cover Eddie's childhood in Poughkeepsie as he was to discuss Ed's pornographic loops of the 1970s.

He was, in short, a major player in the world of Wood research and a significant presence on this blog for eight years. He was also my friend, someone I just loved talking to and working with on various projects. Then, about midway through last year, he vanished. The articles stopped. The videos stopped. Even the emails (for the most part) stopped. Where had he gone, people wondered? I am not one to pry, so I didn't. I'd occasionally hear rumors that he had other matters—perhaps personal, perhaps professional—to attend to. I trusted that he'd eventually find his way back into this strange, little world and would contact me when he was ready to start anew. It just never happened.

On Sunday, December 1, 2024, we finally received a definitive answer about what had happened to Greg, and the news could not have been worse. Not long after receiving a devastating cancer diagnosis, he died at the far-too-young age of 56, leaving behind a daughter, Elyse Rosario, and his partner of 18 years, Jennifer "Kitten" Rosario. I can't help but think how he only outlived Ed Wood by two years (Eddie died at 54 in 1978) and that both men were claimed in the month of December. I wonder if those same thoughts occurred to Greg in his final days.

I asked Jennifer to say a few words in remembrance of Greg, and here is how she responded:

A passionate admirer of Ed Wood Jr., he combined his love of film with his dedication to research and writing, leaving his mark as a contributing author. He found joy in life’s simple pleasures—reading, spending time with family, and delving into thought-provoking documentaries. One thing I want to note is that he considered all of you real friends. I could log into his Gmail right now and find numerous emails of people checking in on him, along with text messages. I can't make every name, but everyone he has worked with since the start of this Ed Wood Jr. journey would fall under this umbrella, at least 10 years or more.  He would tell me a story or something that was found, and it always started with "my buddy ____" or "my friend ___." And I know he cherished each and every friendship made along the way.

Rob Huffman has started a GoFundMe to cover some of Greg's final expenses. The proceeds will go directly to Jennifer and Elyse. Please consider donating. Every little bit helps, as they say. And, if you can't afford it, please forward the link to others on social media so that they can donate. It's the least we can do, considering all Greg did for us.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 205: 'Ed Wood, Secret Agent' (2013)

You can almost hear the theme song, can't you?

NOTE: We lost someone very special this week. On Sunday, December 1, 2024, Greg Javer, aka Greg Dziawer, died unexpectedly of cancer. I'd known of his illness but not that he was terminal, so this news came as a great and horrible shock. Greg wrote many articles for this blog, and we also recorded numerous episodes of The Ed Wood Summit Podcast together. I considered Greg a good friend, and he was extremely generous with his research. A proper tribute to him will appear on this blog once I have all the facts assembled. 

This week, I'd simply like to share a story by author Colin Schmidt that appeared in, of all places, an Australian Dr. Who newsletter in 2013. It imagines Ed Wood as a Mission: Impossible-type secret agent, with Criswell, Tor Johnson, and Bela Lugosi as his teammates. This story was sent to my email account by someone who was looking for Greg! I dutifully forwarded it on to Greg, but he never rendered an opinion on it. I'm pretty sure he would have enjoyed it, though, and I'm pretty sure you will, too.  J.B.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 204: The unveiling of Ed Wood's historical marker

A glimpse at the unveiling of Ed Wood's historical marker.

Since Thanksgiving is approaching and most Americans are preoccupied with travel, relatives, decorating, shopping, and food—or possibly all of these—I thought I'd keep it especially light and informal this week. So no big Ed Wood revelations or in-depth Ed Wood reviews, okay? Let's just have a little Ed Wood fun.

Pretty in pink?

Last Wednesday, I told you about how a New York State historical marker was being placed in front of Ed Wood's childhood home at 35 Delano Street in Poughkeepsie, thanks to the efforts of some high school students in teacher Robert McHugh's AP history class in Dutchess County. Those enterprising youngsters cited this very blog in their application to a nonprofit organization called the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, which seeks to denote places of historical significance in the state of New York. 

And, after two years, it worked! The Foundation agreed to mark Eddie's former home with a permanent, bright blue-and-yellow sign. Anyone who walks or drives by 35 Delano Street will know that this was once the home of the director of Glen or Glenda (1953). None of this could have happened without the research of such esteemed Woodologists as Greg Dziawer and James Pontolillo, both of whom have made invaluable contributions to this blog.

I couldn't be there for the unveiling of the sign, unfortunately, but I did write a speech for the occasion. That speech was delivered for me by director and film programmer Katie Cokinos. You can view a gallery of photos from the event right here. In some of the pictures, you can see that the marker was hidden under a pink cloth before it was revealed. To my eyes, at least from a distance, the sign appears to be wearing its very own pink angora sweater! What could be more appropriate?

A 16-minute video of the unveiling ceremony has also been posted to Instagram for those who would care to watch it. It includes Katie's speech, if that's a selling point. You'll really get a sense of how charming this building on Delano Street truly is. This is some old-school construction, and it has a lot more personality than the soulless architecture we see today. I'd be proud to live in a place like this. 

Before we leave this topic in the rearview mirror, I'd like to share an email I received from Katie the day after the unveiling:

Hi Joe,

What an amazing event! Ed Wood’s birthplace, 35 Delano (as in Franklin Delano Roosevelt), around the corner from the Bardavon Theater, the house is owned by Roberto Rossi whose family has a deli, Rossi and Sons, a block away. Robert McHugh, history teacher at Arlington High School, organized the memorial and event along with his students. And your wonderful, inspiring, informative tribute got a rousing applause. Love that this happened during his 100th year. I felt Edward Davis Wood Jr. smiling.

Thank you for participating albeit through your writing,

I only wish I could have been there in person!

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 203: The saga of Ed Wood's historical marker

This house on Delano Street in Poughkeepsie was once Ed Wood's home.

And the year of Ed Wood continues! The 100th anniversary of Eddie's birth has brought with it many marvelous surprises, including some recognition from the director's home state of New York. On Wednesday, November 20, 2024, an official historical marker is being placed at 35 Delano Street in Poughkeepsie, New York to denote it as Ed Wood's childhood home. Amazingly, this blog played some small role in that achievement.

In June 2024, I received this intriguing email from a man named Robert McHugh:

I am a teacher near Poughkeepsie and for the past couple of years I have had my students apply for funding for historic markers for sites in Dutchess County. This year, one group of students decided to try for a marker about Ed Wood. They used some of the material from your site—the reference to the wedding announcement of his parents in the Kingston paper was especially helpful—as part of the grant application. 

Good news: they were successful and there is now a historic marker being made that will likely be installed sometime over the next few months. (It takes quite a while to fabricate them; I don't know if we will have it by October 10 for his birthday.) It's going to go in front of one of the homes he lived in, at 35 Delano St. 

I'm not sure if you happen to live anywhere near Poughkeepsie, but we would love to invite you to the unveiling, whenever that would be. 

Thanks for posting all that great information about him online.

I thanked Robert for the email and gave due credit to Greg Dziawer, who has written extensively about Ed Wood's early life in Poughkeepsie for this blog. Greg, in turn, has credited the formidable James Pontolillo for his tireless (and ongoing!) research into Ed's New York years. Unfortunately, since I live in the suburbs of Chicago and work full time, I had to tell Robert that attending the unveiling of the marker was not possible.

In October, Robert gave me an exciting update: "The Ed Wood marker has finally been made. Now we have to figure out how to install it and think about an unveiling ceremony." In assembling the ceremony, Robert reached out to director and film programmer Katie Cokinos, who organized the special screening of Ed Wood (1994) that I attended virtually on Ed's 100th birthday last month. Knowing I would be unable to be there in person, Katie very nicely asked me to write a speech for the occasion. Here is that speech:

Ladies and gentlemen:

We are gathered here on this wonderful occasion to honor the memory of a man who received very little recognition in his own lifetime. Edward Davis Wood, Jr. was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on October 10, 1924 and became enamored of show business and the movies at a young age. He even worked as an usher at the Bardavon Theater on Market Street. I can imagine he spent many hours in that place, staring up at the screen and gazing in amazement at the larger-than-life figures projected there. He especially loved the cowboy stars, like Buck Jones, and of course the great horror icon Bela Lugosi.

For many of us, that's where the journey would end. We're content just to watch the screen and to live vicariously through other people's stories. We still do that today, except the screens have gotten much smaller and we can carry them in our pockets. But that wasn't enough for our Eddie. He didn't just want to watch other people's adventures. He wanted to have adventures of his own. That instinct led him, after a stint in the Marines during World War II, to Hollywood in the late 1940s.

 

Heed the words of Lyle Talbot.

Once on the West Coast, Ed Wood did everything he could to make his mark as a writer, director, and producer of motion pictures. And that's not all! He acted on both stage and screen, made TV commercials and pilots, and penned countless novels, short stories, and magazine articles. There seemed to be no end to his creativity or his ambition. Along the way, he attempted just about every kind of story there is: science-fiction, horror, Westerns, and even crime thrillers. He may never have gotten to work with Buck Jones, but he did work extensively with Bela Lugosi and even befriended the great horror icon. Bela wound up appearing in all three of Ed's most famous films: GLEN OR GLENDA, BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, and the infamous PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

During his own, rather short time on this earth, Ed Wood received very little praise or recognition from the entertainment industry. He wasn't getting positive reviews in the press or awards from his colleagues. To the extent that Ed's films were noticed at all, they were mocked and derided for their low budgets, unlikely dialogue, and outrageous storylines. And yet, his quirky, memorable films have struck a nerve with fans for decades, and those fans have kept Eddie's memory alive long after his death in 1978. This year alone , the 100th anniversary of Ed Wood's birth, there have been at least three major new books about him, and his films continue to be shown in theaters across the country and re-released for home viewing as well.

And now, we place this marker at Ed Wood's childhood home. I am certain that Eddie would be flattered and thrilled by this honor. And if there is anything we can learn from his life, it's that we shouldn't be content to sit on the sidelines and watch other people do all the exciting things we wish we could do ourselves. As Lyle Talbot says in GLEN OR GLENDA, "We only have one life to live. We throw that one away, what is there left?"

I don't know if Katie will actually deliver that speech at the ceremony, but it was so nice to be asked. As for the marker, here is what it will look like. Perhaps, if you live near Poughkeepsie, you can stop by 35 Delano Street and see it for yourself someday.

This handsome blue and yellow marker stands as a tribute to Ed Wood.